Automakers, suppliers, and tech companies are in a flurry to transform vehicles into connected devices and distribute the content to drivers and passengers. Corning Inc.’s transformation plans include using its Gorilla Glass to turn windshields into billboards.

D

uring the past year, I have interviewed many customers across a variety of manufacturing industries to learn more about their industry concerns, the design and manufacturing challenges they face, and the technologies that excite them. Here are some manufacturing and business trends to follow over the next 12–18 months.

I love innovation. I love all facets of it: the discovery of needs, creativity, unique solutions, and the realization of ideas as new products and services. But what concerns me sometimes is the way in which we attempt to implement innovation, because we are likely to constrain it at the time we need it most.

Care.com co-founder Donna Levin played a key part in that company’s growth, and the passion was personal. Levin’s work plans were curtailed when her son was 11 weeks old and had a seizure following a difficult pregnancy. Tests were inconclusive. Her daycare situation evaporated; she and her husband took turns staying home with the baby for three years until his health stabilized. Her husband worked nights, she worked days, and somehow they muddled through.

With the amount of data storage required for our daily lives growing, and available technology becoming saturated, we’re in desparate need of a new method of data storage.

Sponsored Content

Although more than 140 years old, Colonna’s Shipyard Inc. has not stood still with respect to modernization. Colonna’s has made the capital investments necessary to improve efficiency and productivity—and those investments are paying off.

The U.S. Commerce Secretary, Penny Pritzker, has named four organizations as the 2016 recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest presidential honor for sustainable excellence through visionary leadership, organizational alignment, systemic improvement and innovation.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the Federal Laboratory Technology Transfer, Fiscal Year 2014, Summary Report to the President and Congress. Including both quantitative and qualitative measures of effectiveness, the report provides the most current comprehensive view of federal technology transfer efforts across 11 agencies.